The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) provides a data repository which contains suicide rates (self-inflicted deaths per 100,000 people) for most countries between the years 1990 to 2016. In the following visualization, our goal is to explore the relationships between suicide rates and several factors:
Over the years most of the countries improved their GDP per capita. In general suicide rates across countries tend to decrease as GDP per capita increases. A good example of this is China. In 1990 China had a suicide rate of 21.9 and a GDP per capita of $317. In 2016, its suicide rate had decreased to 9.6 deaths per 100,000 people, while its GDP per capita improved to $8123. However, there are also cases like that of Japan. In 1990 Japan had a suicide rate of 20.0 and a GDP per capita of $25417. In 2016, despite an increase in GDP per capita ($38972) the suicide rate increased to 23.1. (Can money buy happiness? We'll leave that one to the experts.)
The above plot shows the evolution of suicide rates for specific countries. China, for example, has been able to reduce its suicide rate continuosly since 1990. Meanwhile, Japan has seen a slight decrease in its suicide rates since it hit a peak in the 2005-2007 period.
As we advance over the years we can see that the percentage of enrolled students in secondary education improves for most of the countries. China is a major success in this regard. As this took place, the country saw an important reduction in its suicide rates. It is also worthwhile to highlight how male to female suicide rate ratios change over time. As we can see, in 1990, only a handful of countries showed a ratio below 1 (which indicates a higher level of suicides amongst females). As we advance through the years we can see that male to female suicide ratios have grown above 1 even for these countries; generally sucides are more prevalent amongst males than females.